DOJ advises White House to ignore Congress

i am completely drop-jawed at the arrogance and total lawlessness of the presidential administration that purports to serve as our elected leadership... this is sounding more and more like zimbabwe under robert mugabe rather than the united states of america...

In a broadly worded legal opinion, the Justice Department has concluded that President Bush's former top lawyer, and possibly other senior White House officials, can ignore subpoenas from Congress to testify about the U.S. attorneys affair.

The three-page opinion raises questions about whether the Justice Department would prosecute senior administration officials if Congress voted to hold them in contempt for not cooperating with the investigation into the firing last year of eight top prosecutors.

[...]

Correspondence released by the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday showed that Miers, through her lawyer, had asked White House counsel Fred Fielding whether she had to attend the hearing to personally assert the privilege. After consulting the Justice Department, Fielding wrote back saying that Miers had "absolute immunity from compelled Congressional testimony" and that "the president has directed her not to appear."

The position prompted an angry response from House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., the chair of the commercial and administrative law subcommittee.

"We are aware of absolutely no court decision that supports the notion that a former White House official has the option of refusing to even appear in response to a Congressional subpoena," Conyers and Sanchez wrote to George Manning, Miers' lawyer. "A refusal to appear ... could subject Ms. Miers to contempt proceedings."

[...]

"The privilege does not entitle you to refuse to appear. The privilege entitles you to refuse to answer questions when you appear if those questions call for privileged information," said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics professor at New York University law school. "No one can claim the privilege entitles you to ignore the body that subpoenas you."

unbelievable...

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